Hale Fellow Well Met

What does an about-to-turn 60 editor get when he catches up with Hale Irwin, the latest sixtysomething on the senior tour? Smarter

No stranger to tour milestones, Irwin views turning 60 matter-of-factly.

By Bob Carney

Photo By Charles Laberge

June 3, 2005

Hale Irwin Is being Hale Irwin again. He is in Savannah at a press seminar for the Champions Tour, handwritten notes to boot, about to say something statesmanlike about the revival of the 50-and-over tour and its increasingly "fan-friendly" environment. But as he gazes from the podium, past the horseshoe-shaped conference table of media and corporate sponsors and out the window, Irwin spies the hunched-over, weather-beaten shape of Tom Kite on the 18th green, attempting to putt.

"As I look out here," Irwin begins formally … but he's already changed gears, "having to watch Tom Kite with that putting stroke I think to myself … why has he been playing the PGA Tour? Tom, look at that stroke. That's why you belong here!"

The reporters laugh, the sponsors are thinking, "My that's pretty edgy" and in the decent recesses of our hearts, all of us wonder how poor U.S. Open champion Kite would feel if he could hear Irwin's comment through the tent wall. Thank God no one can hear like that on the Champions Tour.

Now Irwin's on to the tour's practice of interviewing players during competition: "Someone puts a mic in front of you and says 'What were you thinking?' and you know, I'm going, 'It's none of your damn business what I'm thinking,' " says Irwin. " 'I'm in the zone, get the heck away from me!' They want to get into your head. I don't want anyone in there." Pause. "The difficult thing is I'm half in favor of it from the business side and half against it in my competitive mode."

Hale Irwin, 60 this week, remains firmly in the competitive mode. He will never quite make it to statesman, not if he turns 70, not if his back gives out and they anoint him commissioner, not if they pay him a million dollars, which, by the way, he has earned 20 times over by doing what comes much more naturally, beating people's brains out on the golf course.

He looks good. The eyes are bright; the heavy, horned-rimmed glasses and the braces are gone. With that well-kept, steel-gray hair, he might pass for a diplomat—but on the golf course, he'd be John Bolton: a guy who loves to hit in a non-contact sport.

The oldest person to win a U.S. Open, his third in 1990, Irwin has added 41 victories on the Champions Tour to his 20 PGA Tour wins, including seven senior majors and at least two titles each of the last 11 years, a run extended by wins in Hawaii and Florida this season. After a rickety back and balky putter had him off form, Irwin posted a top-10 last month at the Bruno's Memorial Classic, but his T-46 at the Senior PGA Championship was his worst finish in a senior major.

That sour note notwithstanding, Irwin has shattered the concept of a senior "window," the idea that one plays great from 50 to 55 and then fades before younger competition. "I don't believe in that window," says Jim Thorpe, a fan-pleaser and not always an Irwin fan. "Hale is a great player who has proved it's not true." One reason: Irwin's nerves endure. "He might not admit it, but you could get 75 guys out here to say he's one of the top putters in the world today," says Jay Haas. "[And] the competitiveness, the heart, he has it in spades."

"Hale Irwin is the best story in sports, period," says Champions Tour commissioner Rick George. OK, so George has a stake in this, but he also makes a point. Hale Irwin may be the best 60-year-old athlete ever. He's damn sure the best golfer. (Yes, better than Snead. They never called it the Chase Sam Tour, did they?) Irwin recently announced that he would try to qualify for the U.S. Open, which he did at one point, 32 consecutive times.

He is still amazingly consistent. In some 238 senior starts, Irwin has finished first, second or third in 102 and in the top 10 in 173, 73 percent. He has set the record for the fastest million dollars earned in a Champions Tour season—and broken it—and won five or more events in three consecutive seasons. Bridges don't last this long.